Destiny Screenshots Show Guardians At Work

Bungie has updated their website with a new set of screenshots from their first-person shooter Destiny. The shots allow you to study in detail some of the scenes from the E3 gameplay demo last week.

Destiny takes place hundreds of year into the future. Humanity's interstellar empire has been devastated by a cataclysmic event. The few survivors now live in a single city on Earth. The players are Guardians, a group of elite warriors who will travel beyond the city to reclaim mankind's former colonies from various alien races.

The game isn't a full-fledged MMO but has massively multiplayer characteristics. Players will be able to freely explore a persistent game world. However, you're not going to see thousands of other players during your exploration. Instead, you'll be matched up with other players as you embark on quests. Players can stay up to date on all the in-game news through web browsers and mobile devices.

The visuals - power-armored soldiers shooting up aliens - are going to invite comparison's to Bungie's previous franchise Halo. Still, I think there are some meaningful differences in the art styles of Halo and Destiny. Destiny's universe looks a lot more worn and realistic than Halo's. With Halo, even in the single-player campaign, I felt like I was running around a sanitized multiplayer arena. The difference in art styles makes sense; Destiny, after all, depicts a civilization in ruins.

As you can see, there's a lot of customization available to players. You're not all going to be Master Chief with different shades of armor. Instead, players will choose a character class and race. The character classes revealed so far include the stealthy Hunters and the magic-wielding Warlocks.